Boom Times Sailing!: Creature Comforts

After the whale sighting yesterday, today we were visited by a little bird. It was quite small like a parakeet and I was surprised to see it so far from land (about 5nm). Typically birds we see out at sea have much larger wingspans allowing them to glide far and conserve energy by not having to flap constantly.Anyway this little guy took a break on board and hopped around the whole boat, even felt so at home as to tour the inside of the cabin. I shooed him out when I had to go down to get something else but he went back in. No harm if he makes us of all the amenities, we'll make sure he's out & off when we're closer to shore. Long story short he was nowhere to be found after we anchored and started preparing dinner so we figured he must have flown out earlier. The dog knew better of course and was obviously sniffing at something on a shelf. We poked around and lo and behold Petie, as Cassandra named him, had cozied up in one of her handbags. We gently picked him up in a towel and set him free outside. Later however we found some evidence of his stay on our couch.

Last night we made it to our planned anchoring inlet after sunset, something we always try and avoid by arriving an hour before sunset. Luckily seas were very calm and there were adequate markers to guide us in. Also I think the channel had recently been dredged because it was very deep. Once in though with little to no light it was difficult to orient ourselves. We dropped anchor exactly where I had originally planned but discovered that it was even shallower than expected, at only 6.5ft. It was high tide and the difference between the upcoming low tide would have dropped us 4ft which would put us on the bottom. So we had to pull up the anchor (I did it since it was my mistake to drop it initially) and re-position nearby where there was 14ft depth. By this time is was pitch black and we were navigating totally by GPS chartplotter. When anchored we were enveloped by darkness. I knew were in kind of a marshy area but couldn't see any of our surroundings. I knew we were safe but it was a weird feeling. To add to this eeriness there was a really weird noise we had never heard before, almost like some thing was scratching at the hull. I went out several times to see if the anchor chain was rubbing in the anchor roller or something but everything was very still. It was really creepy! We were in 14 ft of water so I don't think it was the hull or keel rubbing on the bottom. It would come and go. We never discovered what it was...